In the three or four decades that followed the Meiji Restoration, Japan utterly transformed itself. The transformation was wide-ranging, deliberate, determined, and profound. By the beginning of World War I, Japan could justly claim to be among the leading nations of the world…
One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Growth
American technological progress was rapid between 1920 and 1970, and slow after 1970. Why was it so rapid before 1970? Why was it so slow after 1970?
Why Nations Fail: Extractive and Inclusive Institutions
Acemoglu and Robinson’s goal is to explain why some nations are rich and others are poor. They present a theory based on the interaction between political and economic institutions. Casual empiricism suggests that its explanatory power is quite strong…
Why Nations Fail: Theory is Tidy, History is Messy
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that sustained growth is almost always attained in a particular way: inclusive political institutions develop first, followed by inclusive economic institutions, followed by growth. They recognize the boldness of their claim…
Democracy’s Dilemma
There is more to democratic government than simply the right to vote. The temptation to exercise power in ways that advance self-interests at the expense of national interests must be controlled…
Property and Property Rights: A History
What do property and property rights mean today? What are their philosophical and economic foundations?
Socialism in the Nineteenth Century
Socialist ideas began to appear in the early 1800s, and socialist and communist political parties were active before 1870. The most successful Marxist party, Germany’s SPD, was the largest party in the Reichstag by 1914…
The Russian Odyssey: 1900-1924
In the first decades of the twentieth century, Russia went from autocracy, to revolution and civil war, to communist rule. Economically, it went from an impoverished market economy, to War Communism and the New Economic Policy, to the beginnings of the command economy…
The Russian Odyssey: 1924-1953
During Stalin’s rule, the Soviet Union abandoned markets in favour of a pure command economy, and industrialized at the fastest possible pace…
The Russian Odyssey: 1985-1991
Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to introduce market-oriented economic reforms in the late 1980s. They were too little, too late. The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991…
Merchants and Mechanics 